Bitcoin Forum

It appears that the Biden Administration has begun another crackdown and this time with money laundering through exchanges. If you are an American looking for a safe exchange from the regulators, choose FTX or Coinbase. FTX’s founder is a donor to the Democratic party while Coinbase’s founder has met with congress this week. I would not be shocked if there was foul play.



According to a report today from Bloomberg, Binance Holdings is being investigated by the US Justice Department and Internal Revenue Service as officials look into the use of the exchange by employees and/or customers for money laundering and tax evasion.

Binance has denied any wrongdoing, and the report stresses that "not all inquiries lead to allegations of wrongdoing." Binance has pointed to its anti-money laundering program as a success, while stocking up in recent months on former US politicians and regulators to strengthen regulatory compliance. The firm hired former Senator Max Baucus of Montana in March, and brought on Comptroller of the Currency Brian Brooks to lead its US exchange.

Read in full https://decrypt.co/70837/crypto-market-reacts-binance-irs-investigation-shedding-150-billion-hour

You mean the exchange which kept opening and closing offices in various countries and tax havens around the world has been implicit in tax evasion? Well, I never! ::) First it was China, then Japan, then Taiwan, then Malta, then Bermuda, then the Cayman Islands, then Seychelles, then Jersey. Did I miss any out? Wonder where they will be off to next.

Concerns? This is pretty much proven. They flat out told people they were being blocked because of their IP while offering "alternatives and solutions", while CZ tweeted "VPN is a necessity".

It is very clear something is wrong behind Binance. I have also speculated that they have been beneficiaries of loans from iFinex, Bitfinex, Tether to manipulate bitcoin.

In any case, the skeptical part of me is only saying that Brian Armstrong and Sam Bankman-Fried might be pushing government to move faster to kill Binance so they can take its market share hehehe.

This could be one reason why we had such a bearish short-term market the past few days. I wondered about it because I can see recently is all about Elon being himself on Twitter, lol. He was also mentioned at the end of the article, though.

Anyway, I think what has happened in their platform cannot be undone, and with what o_e_l_e_o said, it's weird to move continuously, IYKWIM.

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Being the top exchange would bring a lot more value to their company for sure. I bet it would affect the crypto market so much once Binance is out of the picture. Anyway, FTX is currently racing to be at the top and the news about Coinbase being publicly traded is great as well. They are doing well.

Given how closely Coinbase already work with the US government, and given also how unethical and profit driven they are, it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if they were pushing for this. Perhaps the government are using Coinbase's blockchain analysis technology to help track down these restriction-evading US customers.

Still, I can't see this killing Binance by any means. Absolutely worst case scenario is they are thrown out the US, but they will continue to operate globally, although I still don't think it will come to that. They'll get hit with a fine and that'll be that.

You can't really take seriously man with nickname CZ who is telling everyone that coins are SAFU, while he created his own centralized blockchain copies and multiple fake Bitcoins on different chains.
He was so ''good'' that he wanted to save people from paying high transaction fess, or there was something more behind the scenes, not to mention how people are reporting more and more issues with their exchange and withdrawals.

Instead of using Binance and other centralized exchanges why don't  we work more on creating better decentralized exchanges and P2P trading websites and wallets?
I know it's much easier to use centralized exchanges but we may pay a much higher price in the long run.

The market downturn probably has very little to do with the fact that Binance is getting cracked down on.

Sure, that is a catalyst, but the markets have been so frothy as of recent that a correction like this was inevitable.

I also don't think that Coinbase and other exchanges that seem to have a better relationship with Congress or whatnot are necessarily the sure bet as a retail investor. Their relationships can deteriorate as rapidly as they were established given the fact that Coinbase's IPO was a huge money grab for a lot of people.

Also, the very important reason why FTX is going to the top is because of the crackdown on Bitmex and Arthur Hayes. I am not telling you that there was foul play but the timing makes me a skeptic hehehe. FTX is one of the best exchanges today, however.

Well, almost everyone is looking for an alternative exchange and FTX has become a viable option for everyone. I like the background of it as well, knowing that they do donations and let people vote on where it will go, etc. It's just a great background that people might find amazing.

I think this was something expected, most exchanges do not have physical offices, they are not yet in compliance with the laws of different countries, so situations like these are predictable to happen


sooner or later the cryptocurrency market will need support from many of these politicians if it is to survive


having an exchange in the USA shouldn't be an easy task, that's why many exchanges have headquarter in part uncertain and its founders are anonymous


it looks like they’re back in china:

Binance has appointed new head of ‘Greater China’ (https://cointelegraph.com/news/binance-has-appointed-new-head-of-greater-china)

I really don't get why so many people fall for this! There's only one Bitcoin, but when withdrawing from Binance you see this:
https://loyce.club/other/withdraw.png

I think many of them went to Coinbase and Kraken exchange and some of them may be using P2P trading and decentralized exchanges like Bisq.

I understand they all want to save on transaction fees, but imagine what would happen with those chains if Binance exchange shuts down and CZ gets arrested, don't think for a second those ten or twenty people will still be running their ''validator nodes'' :)

Gemini, Kraken and Coinbase are all American based as far as I know, and sure they used Binance also because it is one of the biggest exchange in the world, you don't have to be rocket scientist to know that.
Binance also has derivates and leverage trading like Bitmex, unlike other mentioned exchanges, but not all 55k bitcoins are from American customers.

It's just very shady: imagine you go to your bank to withdraw $1000, and the bank offers to print their own banknote. Why would anyone accept that?

I would not take it, but I could imagine scenario when mainstream media and government officials are non stop talking that those printed banknotes are real and you can use them same as dollars and other fiat currencies.
Brainwashed people would usually trust and take those papers, and that makes me think that this is how paper money was created in the first place.
In fiat world you trust governments because history showed us they care about us and they never lie  ::)
In crypto world you trust CZ and exchanges because history showed us they care about us and they never lie  ::)

What even are Binance Chain and Binance Smart Chain? What purpose do they serve? What's the difference between them?

I assume, given the name, that they are both completely centralized and Binanxe have complete control over them both. If that's the case, then why even bother withdrawing your coins at all? If you leave your coins on Binance then they have complete control over them, but even if you withdraw them Binance still have complete control over them? Am I missing something here?

The same as any other altcoin, ICO, fork, DeFi or NFT: the purpose is to make the creator rich(er).

The Chinese hustler gang hehehe. Binance is also doing this with Ethereum and ERC20 tokens withdrawals. They overprice the fees to discourage the user to use Ethereum. In FTX ETH and ERC tokens fees are only $2.50 - $7.50.

So tell me why will any regulatory institution (SEC) close down Binance, when this is happening in the Banking world? https://www.complianceweek.com/surveys-and-benchmarking/report-fines-against-financial-institutions-hit-104b-in-2020/29869.article

I quote, " Collectively, financial institutions headquartered in the United States were hit with the most expensive fines, at $7.5 billion. However, fines against Goldman Sachs related to 1MDB accounted for 91 percent of the U.S. total ($6.8 billion)." <== Fines

Changpeng Zhao began working for the Tokyo Stock Exchange, so he knows what is happening in the financial world and how these private institutions are being protected.  ::)

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-09-24/westpac-settles-austrac-money-laundering-case/12696438

I quote, " Westpac has reached a deal with financial crime watchdog AUSTRAC to settle more than 23 million alleged breaches of anti-money laundering laws by paying a record $1.3 billion penalty."   ::)

You are incorrectly under the impression that banks are held to same laws or standards as anyone else. Banks donate millions of dollars each year to politicians, give them gifts, take them out for meals, help them evade taxes, move their money offshore, etc. The government have no interest in actually punishing or sanctioning the banks to any meaningful degree. Goldman Sachs have an annual revenue of $44 billion. Westpac are sitting at $15 billion. These fines are almost meaningless, and they certainly won't stop their money laundering behavior. We see fines like these on a yearly basis, and nothing ever changes.

Danske bank was hit with a $3.3 billion fine for money laundering earlier this year and still managed to hit their projected targets. These fines are little more than a slap on the wrist.

This made me curious how much money is laundered:

I was under the impression that fines are increasing (at least in Europe). Banks are creating large new departments for compliance, even if just to cover their asses against fines. Five years ago, when I sold half a Bitcoin, nobody cared. But if I do the same now, I can expect a letter from the bank. My impression is they now just mark anything as suspicious so that later on they can say they did their job.
Meanwhile laws on cash payments are getting stricter (https://www.europe-consommateurs.eu/en/shopping-internet/cash-payment-limitations.html) too. The lower the limit, the less privacy in purchases.

Five years ago half a bitcoin was $300. Now it's $20,000. If you had tried to sell ~$20,000 worth of bitcoin five years ago, would your bank have been interested then? Genuine question, as I've never used centralized exchanges so I'm not entirely up to speed with how their AML policies have changed over time.

When thinking about peer to peer, I know I can deposit a few thousand dollars at a time in cash, money order, bank transfer, etc., without any issue, but if I tried to sell a couple of bitcoin at today's prices in one go my bank would probably start asking questions.

I'm surprised cash payment and cash deposit regulations aren't stricter, to be honest. The IRS require any cash trades above $10,000 to be reported, and obviously normal tax rules apply to any other business conducted in cash, but everyone knows various laborers or tradesmen who will give discounts for jobs paying in cash.

I don't know.

It's not that I mind the questions because I do anything illegal, but I don't like the level of private details they ask. For instance, they asked how much crypto I own. Can you imagine Bank A asking you how much money you have in Bank B? It's none of their business.

Isn't that simply to ensure they get their money?
If it's for tax evasion, they won't care about a maximum amount either.

This is my situation for all things privacy related. I'm not shopping on darknet markets, I'm not buying or selling contraband, I'm not funding terrorists, I'm not stealing anything, etc., I just don't think private corporations, banks, or the government, have any business snooping on all my activities. Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty? Mass surveillance, including the type of financial surveillance being undertaken by centralized exchanges and banks, does not make us safer or reduce crime. It is simply a method for the government to control the populace.

But since I'm straying off topic, I'll stop there since I could rant about this for days.

My honest answer would be "I'm not sure". I know where all my seed phrases are backed up and how to access all my wallets, but other than the couple of wallets I access daily or almost daily, I only know a ballpark figure of what's actually stored on most of them. Or perhaps you could say that you don't own any crypto - all you do have in your possession are a variety of hexadecimal/Base58 strings which may or may not be valuable. :P

No reason they can't get their money via a bank wire or similar, even before they start the job if that's what they want. There are a plethora of reasons people will want to work for cash - anything from tax evasion, to avoid wages being garnished for loan repayments or alimony, continuing to claim unemployment benefits, illegal workers (immigrants, criminals, underage, etc.), and so on.